Soldering assemblies are typically used to selectively heat solder which resides upon and/or engages and/or resides within close proximity to one or more electrical components, thereby allowing the heated solder to selectively flow onto the components and to thereafter harden, effective to selectively and electrically connect these components to other components and/or to some other type of electrical assembly, such as and without limitation, a circuit board and/or one or more electrical busses.
These solder assemblies typically include a pair of selectively energizable and/or heatable electrodes which are typically and selectively coupled to a source of electrical power and which are typically adapted to selectively engage each of the components and/or solder and heat the engaged components and/or solder for a certain duration of time, thereby allowing the solder to desirably flow in the previously delineated manner. The electrodes are then removed from engagement with the components and/or deenergized, thus allowing the solder to cool and to create and maintain the desired soldered electrical connection. While these electrodes and prior soldering assemblies do allow for the selective creation of the desired soldered electrical connections, they suffer from some drawbacks.
By way of example and without limitation, these prior dual electrode soldering assemblies oftentimes provide a relatively "uneven flow" of solder due to resistive variances associated with each of the respective heated electrodes, thus causing the electrodes to heat unevenly. These electrode variances, for example, arise from variances associated with the material used to form the respective electrodes as well as to uneven wear caused by the continual and/or repeated engagement of these electrodes with the various components and/or solder. Particularly, the undesirable and "uneven flow" of solder causes a certain portion of the created solder connection to have a relatively large amount of solder while causing the remaining portions to have relatively smaller amounts of solder. Importantly, these asymmetrical solder connections are prone to fatigue type failure, especially in those respective "solder deprived" portions and do not provide reliable and desired electrical connectivity between the various soldered components and the other components/assembly to which they are respectively connected. Moreover, correction of these uneven solder deposits requires a relatively large amount of operator time, thereby undesirably increasing the overall cost of producing the soldered assembly or product. Additionally, and by way of a second non-limiting example, these prior "dual electrode" soldering assemblies require a relatively large amount of time for each electrode to become operatively energized or "hot", thereby potentially damaging component support surfaces, such as automobile glass, which are relatively sensitive to overheating and which requires the solder assembly to provide relatively high amounts of heat for a rather limited duration of time rather than relatively low amounts of heat applied for a relatively long duration of time.
Moreover, yet another non-limiting drawback associated with these prior assemblies arises from their respective failure to allow the components to be easily and fixedly positioned upon the desired component or assembly that they are to be electrically attached or "soldered to", thereby requiring the operator to simultaneously, and oftentimes manually, fixedly position the component while attempting to create the desired solder connection (e.g. holding the component in a steady manner in one hand and placing the solder assembly in the other hand). This required and undesirable practice unduly complicates the soldering process in a manner which increases the overall amount of time and effort required from the operator and undesirably increases the overall cost of manufacturing or production. The manual placement limitation further increases the probability of operator error due to undesired and/or errant movement of the component, and/or the creation of undesirable solder connections due to undesired and/or errant movement of the soldering assembly.
There is therefore a need for a new and improved soldering assembly which overcomes at least some of the previously delineated drawbacks associated with such prior soldering assemblies and which allows a component to be selectively and solderably connected to another component or assembly in a relative efficient and desired manner.